


Help Me Save John Watson.

by AllThingsEnd



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Death, Drowning, Hurt Sherlock, John Is In A Coma, Scared John, Scared Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use, The Final Problem, sherlock and john - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 18:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9453827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllThingsEnd/pseuds/AllThingsEnd
Summary: John is chained to the bottom of the well, water up to his chin. He has moments."Help me save John Watson," he hears Sherlock say, voice now calm."Oh, Sherlock." He could hear Eurus' voice through Sherlock’s mic, through his earpiece. "And ruin all the fun?”





	

"Are you there yet?"

Sherlock's voice was right in his ear. He came to quickly, jerked awake by a small static click and then the question.

"Yeah. Yeah I'm here.”

“John.” Sherlock sounded relieved. “Where are you?”

“I dunno. I’ve just woken up.” He peered around through the dark, standing up. “Where are you?”

“I’m in another cell. I just spoke to the girl on the place again. We were out for hours.”

“Was she still up there?”

“Yes. The plane will keep running until it runs out of fuel. Is Mycroft with you?”

“I have no idea, I can hardly see anything. Mycroft? Mycroft!” No answer returned from the dark.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. Keep exploring. Tell me anything you can about where you are.”

“The walls… rough. They’re rock, I guess.”

“What are you standing on?”

“Uh, stone? I think. But listen. There’s about two feet of water…” John shuffled his feet, then went lift one, only he was stopped by something hard around his ankle and a shuffling of metal. “Chains… Yup. My feet are chained up.” He reached into the water. Before his fingers found the chain, however, they found something unexpected. He brought the small, hard object to the surface. “I can feel something. Bones. Bones, Sherlock. There are bones in here.”

“What kind of bones?”

“Uh, I dunno. Small.”

There was another small static click.

“Sherlock? Sherlock, can you hear me?” Silence. Someone was controlling their earpieces. He had no doubt who was pulling the strings in all of this. He shuffled around best he could, reaching his arms out before him in the darkness, searching for any further indication as to where he was. There was a click and John heard the end of a sentence from Sherlock, and realized he was being connected to he and to the girl on the plane, back and forth.

“-home.”

“I’m in a well. That’s where I am. I’m at the bottom of a well.”

“Why would there be a well in Sherrinford? Why is there a draft?” John got the impression this last question Sherlock was asking more to himself, but before he could ask for further explanation, he heard the click in his ear.

“This is not good,” he muttered to himself. He bent down and felt around the bottom of the well for the plate that fastened the chain to the ground, and began to pull and pry at it, but it did not move at all. His fingers followed the chain up to the clamp around his ankle, but that too would not budge at all. A creaking, metallic noise from above brought his attention up, towards the moon high above, and then water started to cascade down into the well, hammering loudly into the surface of the water. “Oh, not good. Sherlock!” John could hear Eurus’ eerie, childish song playing in his ear. “Sherlock!”

“John. John! John! Can you hear me? John!”

“Sherlock!”

Click.   
“John.”

“Yes. It’s flooding. The well is flooding!”

“Try, as hard as possible, not to drown.”

“What?!” Already the water level was rising.

“I’m going to find you. I am finding you!”

“Well hurry up, please, because I don’t have long!”

Click. On his own again.

He fumbled around for finger-holds in the wall, and began to pull himself up. He got one foot up before the chain went taught around his ankle, and he slipped from the wall with a yell and splashed into and below the water. He sprang back to his feet, sputtering.

The water was up past his waist. He felt his body temperature drop. Okay. Cold water. Cold meant reduced heart rate and blood flow as the body kept the blood around the heart and brain and kidneys and the important organs, drawing it away from extremities. It was also good in that it meant rapid cooling of the brain, if he indeed went under. Good. This gave him more time, a higher chance of survival, if he wasn't rescued until after he was submerged.

Good lord but who was going to rescue him? Mycroft was nowhere to be found or heard from. Sherlock was clearly panicking with his own trouble.

"It's all science. Be logical," John whispered to himself. He just had to manipulate himself and his scenario as best he could do that he would raise his chances of survival. It was all scientific, this well and he and the air he was soon not going to have. All science, and he was a doctor. Lungs and organs and bones. He could do this. Bones. Human bones.

"Hang on," Human bones. Those were not dog bones. Those were human.

Static.

“Sherlock.”

“…clever little puzzle, wasn’t it?” It was Eurus’ voice, riddled with static, as though Sherlock was hearing her through a mic, and he through Sherlock’s. “…work it out, Sherlock?”

“There's something you need to know.”

“Emotional context…”

"Yes, they’re dog’s bones. That’s Redbeard.”

“Mycroft’s been lying to you. To us. They’re not dog’s bones.” John slowly lifted a human skull out of the water. A child. By the looks of it, it had been here for decades.

“…daddy’s allergy… begged… never let you have a dog… a better story…”

There was a painful silence.

“Victor” Sherlock breathed. “Victor Trevor.”

Click.

More important things right now. John dropped the skull back into the water, trying not to see the dark irony in it, and took a deep breath before ducking under water. It was murky, but he could still see, and he returned to yanking at the chains, again trying in vain to free himself. No use. He resurfaced.

The water was almost to his chin.

Click. Sherlock was going on about a puzzle.

“-the key to the cipher, the cipher to the song.”

"Is all of this strictly relevant?!" The water was to his chin. He strained his neck to give himself more time. But it was running out, he knew.

“Yes it is. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

"Sherlock, please hurry," he whispered to nothing. The earpiece was off.

Calm. He must stay calm. The involuntary drowning response would aid with that, but he mustn't panic.

Click.

“I - am - lost - without - your - love” Sherlock seemed to be reading something.

Click.

Against his intents, John’s breathing started to increase in rate. Water lapped up into his upturned face. Mammalian diving reflex. This would construct his capillaries in the skin and extremities, sending more blood to his core and vital organs. Heart rate slows. Next step: airway closes. He took deep gulps of air from his mouth until one of them brought in water around the corners of his lips. He coughed involuntarily, drawing in more water. He snapped his mouth shut and spat out the water in his mouth, careful not to take in any more. He began to take deep breaths of air into his lungs through his nose. Already he was feeling the lack of oxygen.

Click.

”Help me save John Watson.” It took everything he had not to cry out to the mic, to the voice of Sherlock that was now far calmer than it had been a moment before. Whatever riddle has confounded him a moment ago, he had solved. Moments now. Moments, and Sherlock would be here. Moments.

"Oh, Sherlock." He could hear Eurus' voice through Sherlock’s mic, through his earpiece. "And ruin all the fun?”

Click.

And the water flooded over his mouth and then his eyes and then his nose.

Laryngospasm. His larynx was closed. His airway was shut. And so the process of drowning had officially begun.

He kept repeating in his mind, ‘stay calm, stay calm’ but this only added to his panic that was getting harder to suppress at every moment.

His throat was burning, yearning for what he could not give it. His lungs were empty.

His body began to act on its own accord. His mouth opened in desperation, but his airway stayed shut tight. His limbs were cold and felt distant, for his blood had abandoned them. Despite the obvious futility of it, he pushed his arms through the water, trying to swim up toward the shattered, swirling light above him.

John's throat began to spasm. Dry drowning, it was called. When the larynx spasms and stays closed and the victim suffocates with little to no water in the lungs. Until after they lose consciousness, that is. Which John could feel in his near future. A dizziness crept into his mind, searing and heavy.

‘Sherlock…'

The clasp of the chain was cold around his ankle. His entire body ached with agony and terror. The water around him he could hardly feel were it not for the searing pain in his throat, and his darkening mind.

‘Sherlock...'

//

“Euros, you cannot do this! Not John!”

"Your pet? Did you let him off his leash?" Euros was still kneeling on the ground. Sherlock was backing away from her, toward the door.

"You can’t…"

“Oh, baby brother. Yes, I can.”

Sherlock blinked away shock and disbelief, and then spun on his heel, his coat flying through the air behind him, and he left the room as fast as he could. Skipping steps down the stairs, he fled the crippled house in darkness, his lantern still on the ground beside his smirking sister. He filtered through his memory, his maps, until he remembered the location of the well on the grounds. As he sprinted across the fields, his panicked mind was running through hundreds of different ways to free John, to save John, to save John Watson. Without slowing his steps, he took his phone from his pocket and phoned Lestrade, shouting into it until he heard Lestrade understand, and then he threw his phone to the side and shed his coat, it snapping in the wind like a massive bat before crumpling into a dark heap and being left behind.

“John!” He could see the top of the well in the distance, a dark silhouette like an ancient ruin. He could hear the churning of water, echoing against rock. “John!” He reached the lip of the well, his hands grabbing on to the stone ring then his body running hard into it, and he leaned over and looked down into the deep darkness.

For a moment all he could see was shards of moonlight reflecting off of the ripples, until the water broke just so, and he could see through the surface to what was beneath, and his heart seemed to stop in his chest.

There was John Watson, floating just beneath the surface, face turned upwards towards the light. His arms hung out to his sides, unmoving. And then the moonlight caught his eyes, glazed, made silver by the moon, unblinking and sightless. Then the light shifted and he vanished.

“JOHN!” Sherlock’s scream echoed back up the well at him, but not before he had thrown his legs over the rim of stone and dropped down into the cold, dark water. His feet hit the stone bottom of the well, and he ran his hands along the murky bottom for a moment until he found where the chain was secured to the ground. His eyes wide to let in as much light as possible, he pried at the metal plate with his fingers, but it would not move at all. He yanked on the chain, to the same lack of result. And then he looked up.

Moonlight, shattered by the ever-rising water, silhouetted most of the man, but Sherlock’s heart broke at the sight nonetheless. He swam up so that he was face-to-face with John, then he  
pressed his mouth to John’s, pinching the nose, and he breathed all the air into his lungs into John’s. Or so was his hope, for he was unable to tell if the air went in or not, the water cascading down from above making too much turmoil and bubbles for him to tell. His lungs empty, he swam to the surface for air, guilt at his ability to do so ringing in his ears, but he could not help John otherwise. He resubmerged and again breathed all his air into John. He pulled away, his hands on either side of John’s face, and searched his eyes for signs of life. They were still vacant and out of focus. Sherlock surfaced for another gulp of air, then dove back down to the bottom and again yanked on the chain as hard as he possibly could. Nothing. He moved up and wrestled with the clasp around John’s ankle, his frustration and panic building in his chest like a bubble about to burst within him. He emptied his lungs into John’s once more before returning to the air above.

He broke the surface with a gasp, tears welling in his eyes to join the water pouring in from above. He tried to press his fingertips together as he did to help him enter his mind palace, but the waterfall and him treading prevented this. And then he heard his name, and for half a moment, against all logic, he thought it was John. But it was not his voice, and it was from too far off, so that it only reached him faintly. And then came the sound of approaching helicopter blades.

“LESTRADE!” He shouted into the night, straining to crane his neck as high as he could. “LESTRADE!”

“I hear him, he’s here!” A flashlight shone suddenly into his eyes, and more shouting voices. There was a great scraping of metal on metal, and the water falling from above ceased. The depth was far over Sherlock’s head, were he to stand on the bottom, but not high enough for him to climb out of the well. Though that thought was far from his mind.

“Chain cutters!” He shouted.

“Here! Catch!” Somebody threw them down, and Sherlock dove with them in hand, and with great effort he freed John, then took him under the armpits and swam him to the surface. He moved on to his back to assist in his floating, and carefully leaned John’s head back on to his shoulder.

“Help us,” he croaked, his voice drowned out by the increasing volume of the helicopter that was now almost right above them. A rope fell down to them with a loop tied into one end, and Sherlock grabbed hold of it, wrapping it under John’s armpits. He waved, and they hauled John up and pulled him out of sight. A moment later the rope returned for him.

When he clambered over the lip of the well and fell on to the grass, every layer of thought was on John.

“Where is he?” He stumbled to his feet and began running towards a cluster of people, both kneeling and standing. For a split second, as the people shifted, he saw what must be John. Limp and lifeless, on the ground. Before he reached him, however, a strong arm crossed his chest and swung him around, holding him back. “John!”

“Sherlock!” It was Lestrade, holding tight to his shoulders and forcing him to look into his eyes. “Sherlock, shut up! You can’t go over there.”

“John-“

“They don’t know, Sherlock. They’re taking him to the hospital now. In the helicopter.”

Sherlock wheeled around, but Lestrade grabbed his arm.

“Don’t.”

//

Sherlock arrived at the hospital six hours after John was admitted. Lestrade had put him in protective custody for a few hours after he had attacked an officer in an attempt to steal a police car. The officer was fine, only pissed. All Lestrade had been able to convince Sherlock to do was change into dry clothes.

“Can I help you?” the receptionist hardly looked up from his book.

“No. What room is John Watson in?”  “So yes, I can help you?” He lazily looked up, and instantly regretted his tone. Sherlock grabbed a fistful of the front of his shirt and pulled him up so they were nose to nose.

“John Watson,” Sherlock repeated through gritted teeth.

“Room two hundred twenty one,” the man gasped out. Sherlock released him and disappeared.

Elevator. Too slow. Sherlock bounded up the stairs and burst into the second floor hallway. A doctor jumped, then ran over to him.

“Mr. Holmes!” She held her arms up, blocking his way. “Detective Lestrade said you'd be here. Just know, he is unresponsive. He is in a coma.”

“He’s alive?”

“Yes. Barely. For now.”

Sherlock moved past her and burst into John’s room.

The difference between this and sleep was the difference between lightening and the lightening bug. John was stiff as a board, his lips painted with a subtle blue, his skin pale. He had a breathing tube in his mouth and an IV in his arm. He looked as though he would never open his eyes again.

“John,” Sherlock whispered. He received the response he had expected: stillness and silence. He glanced at the monitors and instruments, taking in the data. It was as the doctor had said. Unresponsive. Future condition unknowable. His condition was unstable. His heartbeat was weak. He had gone into cardiopulmonary arrest, so they had used a defibrillator to restart his heart, manually given him CPR for almost an hour, and now had him hooked up to life support. If a single wire shorted, or anything came lose, or a fleck of dust landed wrong, John would die. Even if everything went just as planned, or better than planned, he may still die. Sherlock’s legs suddenly felt weak, and he sank to the ground beside John’s hospital bed. Tears glistened his eyes. He leaned slowly over John and laid his hands over his chest, fingers curling in so that he was gripping the loose hospital gown. He gently rest his head on top of his hands. “I’m sorry, John. So sorry.”

//

Sherlock knew the complications of near-drowning. If he awoke - when he awoke - he may have brain severe brain or lung damage that could never fully heal. He had had hypothermia when they found him, and his hypoxemia was severe. His brain functions were poor, with no improvement at all between each of Sherlock’s visits. He left 221B only for Room 221, doing his best not to think that maybe it would all end behind a door bearing the same number as the one behind which it had all started. He cursed his inability not to notice every detail the monitors displayed, for John’s brain function and heartbeat were in fact lessening, ever so subtly, between each visit.

Ms. Hudson, Molly, Lestrade, even Mycroft popped in to see John once or twice. Sherlock was always careful never to be there at the same time, preferring to visit John alone. Two months passed, and Sherlock found himself slumped in his chair with a needle in his arm.

Or rather, Ms. Hudson found him like that, muttering about John and about unsolved cases. He could not have told you what planet he was on, even if he knew anything about the solar system, for he was too high to even be aware of his own existence, in that moment. Ms. Hudson called Molly and Lestrade and together they coaxed him back to life.

The next time he overdosed, he collapsed on the tube and woke up in the hospital. They wouldn’t let him visit John, after he was released.

The third time he overdosed, it was on a concoction of his own making. He had on four nicotine patches, the crook of his elbow was bruised and bleeding (with an empty syringe still hanging limply from his skin), a whole pack of smoked cigarettes littered the floor around him, and the table beside the chair was dusted with white powder that also appeared around one of his nostrils. He would not know it, but just before he succumbed to unconsciousness, curled up on the floor of his flat, John woke up.

//

Ms. Hudson was there when John awoke. She had been talking about her failing love life, keeping both John and herself company, and she did not react the first time John said her name, for he said it in the same tone in which he always said her name, when he was trying to get her attention.

“Ms. Hudson.”

“He’s nice enough, but I really don’t understand why-“

“Ms. Hudson.”

“JOHN”

She ran from the room to get his doctor before even saying hello, leaving him utterly perplexed. His pulled the breathing tube from his mouth, but immediately started choking, so he put it back in and took deep breaths. The door opened after a moment, and Ms. Hudson reentered with his doctor.

“Dr. Watson,” she smiled. “You have no idea how relieved we are that you are awake.”

“Yes, thank you. Uh, why am I here? What happened?”

Ms. Hudson let out a mix between a gasp and a cry, apologized, and left the room.

His doctor explained everything to him, concluding with, “You seem to be one of those miracles.”

They kept him in hospital for another 24 hours - during which Ms. Hudson stayed - then released him. He had an oxygen tank that he absolutely hated, but when he tried to show them that he was fine without it it, he was reduced to a fit of coughing and wheezing, and finally accepted it. He was to call if anything at all was different, and to come back the following afternoon for a check in, regardless. They said he had suffered a good deal of brain damage, but luckily his thinking should not be impaired. What would be most affected were his memories, and in fact he realized he could only remember the past few years clearly, discounting the last few months. Everything before around when he met Sherlock felt more like a dream, out of focus and full of gaps.

“Oh, he’ll be just fine!” Ms. Hudson promised, her hands on John’s arm that was not pulling the oxygen tank. “He’s got me and Sherlock! Oh, won’t he be so happy to see you! I haven't told him yet, you know. We’ll give him a little surprise.”

The taxi back to Baker Street was maddeningly slow. When they at last climbed out of the car, John felt himself relax, even if just a bit. He was home. Things would be okay. Together they entered the hall.

“You go on up alone, dear.”

“Thank you so much, Ms. H. Really.”

“Anything for my boys,” she smiled, and shuffled into her flat.

John took as deep a breath as he could, and began climbing the stairs, lugging the tank up behind him. He cursed the small, useless wheels, then turned to face the door. 221B Baker Street. Home.

He knocked once. Nothing. So he pushed the door open and walked in, saying Sherlock’s name as he did. He did not, however, get to the end of the name. For the air in his throat seemed to freeze solid when he saw Sherlock seizing on the floor, eyes rolled into his head, every muscle in his body in a state of spasm. John dropped his tank and ran to Sherlock’s side, the tubes falling from his nose, and he fell to his knees, shattering syringes, tears already blurring his vision as he screamed for Ms. Hudson to phone the police, and by the time she ran in and shrieked, he was leaning over listening for breath, his fingers on his neck to feel for pulse. Weak pulse. Labored breathing. He was hardly breathing at all.

Sherlock fell still. His eyes closed, but fluttered open a moment later.

“Sherlock, can you hear me? Sherlock.” John snapped his fingers over Sherlock’s eyes and beside his ears, checking for sensory responsiveness. Nothing.

Lessened level of consciousness. Common in an opioid overdose. Sherlock had overdosed before. He was always fine. He would be alright.

What had he said that once time? It took seven minutes for emergency vehicles to get to Baker Street. Seven minutes.

“Seven minutes, Sherlock,” John was breathing heavily. “Less, now. You can do that. Easy.”

After a moment, John leaned over and again took his pulse and listened for breathing. He closed his eyes. He could feel his lungs beginning to ache, and his mind went briefly to his oxygen tank, lying feet away. But he would not leave Sherlock.

CPR would not do much good, this he knew. The drugs were still in his system, and as John glanced around him at the wreckage of Sherlock’s binging, panic settled in with the realization of just how much Sherlock had taken. John pulled up the sleeve of the arm that was not already exposed for the heroin, and his heart skipped a beat at the four nicotine patches. He tore them off and cast the aside, and wiped Sherlock’s nose clean of the little powder that remained.

“Sherlock, no. How could… how could you do this to me? Not again, Sherlock. I can’t…” John’s voice gave as he choked back a sob, for he had looked into Sherlock’s eyes, usually so intense and intelligent, now dull and sightless. He bent down and wrapped his arms around Sherlock, lifting him into a desperate hug, rocking back and forth, whimpering and crying and gasping for breath. “Please. No, no, Sherlock. Wake up. For me. For me.”

//

Sherlock was dead by the time the ambulance arrived. They pried John off of him, Lestrade holding him back in a vice-like hug as they carried the body away, out of the flat.

Together they walked out the front door of the flat. Before he left John alone, knowing that is what the silent doctor would need right now, Lestrade wrapped Sherlock’s coat around John's shoulders like a blanket.

“Anytime, John. Anything you need.” He gave John a pat on the back, and left.

And John sat there in silence, on the doorstep of 221B Baker Street, in front of the door behind which it had all began. And behind which it all ended.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think, please. Thank you for reading!


End file.
